1 Deployment

Harsh vibrations thundered through the large quadcopter, emitting worrying creaking noises and rocking the armoured soldiers within to and fro. There were nine soldiers in the bay. Eight of them wore industrial looking, thick, steel alloy armour with a detailed desert camo. Neat, organized wires peeked out from between the joints in the plates and a weird cylindrical structure protruded a few centimetres out from their backs. Chunky helms encased their heads with only two slits to give vision, but even those had a sturdy layer of tinted glass alloy. Their hands carried rugged, cannon-like rifles and magazines containing their oversized ammo had been plastered all over the body from the thighs, to the hips, to the sides and to the back.

Yet the soldier at the head was an even stranger sight. The equipment worn was many folds more sleek and elegant, giving off a refined look. Unlike the other soldiers, the weird cylinder protruding from the soldier's back had mysterious, intricate details carved in, with smooth parabolic curves connecting the rim of the cylinder to the back of the suit. The helm worn had a smooth surface, lacking even openings for vision. Instead, a crown, bearing the same desert camo as the rest of the suit, lay upon the soldier's forehead. Tiny hidden cameras lay within the decorations on the crown, with 12 cameras, arranged in groups of 4, pointing towards the four cardinal directions, the system seemed to have a 360-degree field of view.

'5 minutes till deployment,' announced a steady voice, soon drowned out by the roaring of the quadcopter.

'I guess this is it,' stated one of the soldiers. The others nodded in response, the noise of the engines droning on without end.

'3,2,1, drop off,'

The great bay doors fell open, revealing a chaotic battlefield. Cannon shells crisscrossed through the sky, their points of impact carved out great fuming pits into the landscape while bodies, rotted on the ground, their blood, forming great rivers that caused the soldiers on the ground to slip and slide. Thousands of soldier pushed through the thickening miasma against a tide of monstrous life forms.

Soldiers, wearing minimalist exo-suits rained fire onto the towering figures and while many fell, a great amount of those monstrous figures were still able to reach the main lines to wreak havoc amongst the soldiers. The rattling quadcopter sailed over the battlefield and soon a grand mountain came into view. It was as towering as Mount Everest and just as imposing, yet its peak was devoid of snow, despite the way it seemed to pierce through the clear sky. It was after the quadcopter got halfway up the mountain was the troop deployed.

The clamps released their grip and the soldiers within span through the sky. Wind screamed past the helmets of the skydiving soldiers and before long, their massive parachutes were deployed. Tens of similarly equipped squads had been scattered across the expansive blue sky, all heading towards the imposing mountain. In a few minutes the squad crashed into the side of the mountain, the parachutes that were afterwards cast aside, obviously could not reduce the momentum of the steel suits by a large enough margin. Bestial monsters surrounded the squad before they could even take a step forward.

'27 Rock Beasts, rank 0, our rifles can deal with their outer carapaces, they won't be an issue,' declared one of the squad.

'Roger'

The team moved to form a grid-like formation, guns pointing outwards with the "crown" in the middle.

'Open fire!'

Bright blue flames burst out from the barrels of the rifles, catapulting out massive .50 cal rounds, smashing into the armoured skulls of the Rock Beasts. Their rough outer carapaces, smashed apart, splinters flying out in all directions. Their blood congealed into small streams, flowing down the mountainside, evaporating into red, eerie mists in the dry, hot air. A few seconds later, the thundering of the guns had stopped. The rock beasts never stood a chance and because of their foolishness, their corpses littered the ground, fresh and red. With the blood of their enemies streaming down the curves their steel armour, they set forth and proceeded to ascend the mountain, each step propelling their bodies several metres forwards.

'14 more kilometres to target'

A soldier cried out in alarm, 'Reyla, watch out! To your left!'

Without a moments hesitation, the soldier that was addressed as Reyla threw her body out to the left, narrowly dodging several two and a half metre long quills that then plunged deep into the rocky ground. The squad dispersed, finding cover amongst the nooks and crannies of the mountainside. The culprit of the attack was proudly standing on a tall cliff around 30 metres away from the squad. It looked rather like a gigantic porcupine, four metres tall and covered in long, viscous quills. Its eyes were deep red and its thick bone-like armour was camouflaged with the brown rocks around it.

'It's a rank 1 cannon porcupine, we would waste a lot of ammunition if we shoot at it now, so we should wait until it launches half of its quills, then, we can shoot at its exposed body!' yelled the soldier closest to the porcupine.

'Dirk, how many quills does it have?' asked another soldier while dodging 3 more quills on his way to cover.

'Anywhere from 120 to 190, you'll be fine as long as you don't do anything dumb'

Not but a few seconds later, the porcupine launched 20 quills at the addressed soldier, tearing apart his cover, forcing him to fall back behind another large rock behind him, only to have that cover destroyed again by another 30 quills.

'Good, at this rate we'll get there in no time!' joked a soldier who was huddling in a hollow of a cliff.

'Dammit Royce, screw you!' screamed John in a high pitched voice as he rolled out of the way of several more quills, trying to get to "crown" as he had the nearest cover.

'Fel, help me!'

In response, the crown, or Fel, angled his rifle towards the incoming quills. Brilliant blue lasers shot out of a secondary barrel on the gun, vaporising both of the quills that were approaching John and saving his life. He thrust out his free arm, grabbing John and hauling him to safety.

'Shelab, Reyla, Donnick, you're in a good position, shoot it down!' ordered Dirk

'Got it'

Three high calibre rifles spewed searing blue flames, launching massive metal projectiles at the porcupine. The porcupine's thick armour deflected two of the bullets while the other smashed into the exposed rear in of the porcupine, scooping out large sections of gory flesh. A second later they fired another volley. This time all three bullets hit the target, causing half of the porcupine to blow up into a mass of blood and gore.

'Target eliminated,' declared Dirk. 'Take the core and continue towards the target. The target has moved two more kilometres away, we gotta move.'

Royce leapt up to the porcupine's corpse and shoved his hand into the quivering mass of flesh. After scrounging around in the putrid mass for a few moments he pulled out a burnt sierra coloured, semi-transparent, glowing, spherical object with a 15cm diameter. Without a second glance, he shoved it into his pouch and caught up to the group.

Off in the distance, they saw another nine-man squad engaging in a fierce battle with a massive, 15-metre long snake. Massive bullets hurtled onto the body of the snake, however, a strange yellowish barrier that enveloped the entire body of the snake blocked every single one of the deadly bullets. One of the soldiers had his chest smashed in by a sudden swipe of the snake's the tail and flew at breakneck speed to the side of the mountain. The impact was so strong that the ground shook, sending out a near solid cloud of dust and dirt. The clouds cleared, revealing a soldier lying still in a small crater, his valiant armour, decimated. The wires of his suit were broken, still fizzing in the air, his blood, dripping through fissures while strange, blue, flames burst out of the back of the suit. The suit ejected a weird cylindrical object that rolled away, carrying the blue flame with it.

Reyla looked at the squad worriedly 'Should we help?'

'No time, we gotta keep moving.' replied Fel, gritting his teeth under his crowned helm.

Dirk, noticing their suffering tried to lighten the mood, 'Well, on that topic, we're only eight kilometres away from the target!'

'Wait a moment, I meant 4, huh, wait, 3? …um guys, it appears to be directly beneath us, everyone, quick disperse!'